Who is Savitar? We finally got our answer in The Flash Season 3 episode 21, “Cause and Effect,” but something about the Future Flash thing still feels off. We don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle just yet. We know a lot about Future Flash and very little about how Savitar himself relates to all this. What is the difference between Savitar and Future Flash? Is there one? So with two episodes left, let’s go over why there could be a swerve to this Savitar mystery.
“I outgrew red,” Savitar tells present-day Barry Allen, as he proceeds to explain how Future Flash became known as a speed god. Savitar describes himself as “a temporal duplicate,” also known as a time remnant.
Four years from now, Barry creates a time remnant to fight Savitar (after Iris dies). But knowing he eventually gets trapped inside the speed force, Savitar lets one time remnant of future Barry live so it can later become Savitar. Once Savitar is imprisoned in the speed force, this remnant starts going crazy. He goes back in time, to the ancient past, and becomes Savitar himself. This is how a future version of the Flash becomes Savitar, by creating what what’s known as a “closed loop.”
READ: ‘The Flash’: Seven Big Questions About Savitar
This is why speedsters like Jay Garrick knew Savitar as only a myth, the first speedster ever, because Savitar spread lies to be thought of as a god and recruited followers to worship him. This closed loop also means it’s impossible to tell who came first, Savitar or this future version of the Flash.
“You brought a remnant to life last year to defeat Zoom. Your duplicate died saving the multiverse, and you continued your happy little life and it would have stayed that way. But then you decided to play god and created flashpoint. It changed everything,” evil Barry from the future explains.
Still confused, Barry says his future self told him he created time rementants to stop Savitar. Barry was under the impression Savitar killed them all. But it turns out, he let one live. Apparently, the emo version of Barry from 2024 forgot to mention this to present-day Barry.
“Me. I lived. But a funny thing happened when I did,” Savitar explains. “You, Joe, Wally, Cisco... you all shunned me because I wasn’t the true Barry Allen. Because I was just an aberration, a disposable hero.”
Barry assumes that, like Eddie did with Reverse-Flash, killing himself would in turn kill this evil time remnant version of himself. Savitar, a future time remnant of Barry, would have never been created if present-day Barry dies.
However, Savitar confirms what we all already know. Cause and effect is at risky thing. The more you mess with the timeline, the less the rules apply. Eddie shot himself in the chest, but Thawne (Eddie’s ancestor) still somehow lived (until the Black Flash finally caught up with him on Legends ).
“My ascendancy is nearing. When I have control of all of time, it will be you who is abandoned and forgotten.”
As it turns out, the message the Legends revealed to everyone during the Invasion crossover directly relates to Savitar. That’s why Barry Allen from 2056 warns Rip Hunter that everyone's past, present and future has changed and not to trust anyone, not even The Flash.
READ : How ‘The Flash’ Combined Future Flash & Savitar From The Comics
Future Flash says he needs two things to become Savitar. The first is that Iris has to die, so Barry can go so dark that Savitar can be born. The second remains to be seen. At this point, we know more about this ‘Future Flash’ than Savitar, whose origins as the god of speed still remain a mystery. Right now we have Future Flash and we have Savitar and we have yet to see how these two identities come together. For all we know, Savitar is just the name of Future Flash’s mechanical suit.
The whole Savitar situation seems to be directly related to the Flashpoint paradox. If Savitar is a time remnant of Future Flash from when Barry attempted to defeat Savitar, how was Savitar created in the first place? The time continuity still doesn't make perfect sense, especially since it appears Future Flash is just calling himself Savitar and hasn’t risen to ascendancy quite yet.
What is Savitar waiting for? There’s got to be a swerve coming. Let us know what you think in the comments below!
The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m.
